


God's Anger would be a Mercy at this Point

by emqjm84



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Ableism, Absent Parents, Acid, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Amputation, Angst, Attempted Murder, Blood, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Buried Alive, Cannibalism, Character Death, Child of a Rape, Corpse Desecration, Death, Debridement, Decapitation, Depressing, Depression, Dismemberment, Dummy Plug, Emotional Infidelity, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Fingers in Throat, Gaslighting, Gen, Gore, Guilt, Human Flesh Consumption, I am a HORRIBLE PERSON, Infant Death, Injury Recovery, Isolation, Jealousy, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mass Death, Mass Production Evangelion, Maternal Somatic Support after Decapitation, Medical Abuse, Medical Trauma, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mind Rape, Miscarriage, Multiple Asukas, Multiple Personalities, Murder, Needles, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Parental Death, Physical Violation, Post Instrumentality, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Third Impact, Pregnancy, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Resentment, Resurrection, Self-Hatred, Serious Injuries, Sexism, Shame, Spouse Death, Stitches, Surgery, Time Loop, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Unethical Experimentation, Unethical Medicine, Violation, Violation of Consent, being forgotten, internalized ableism, life support, rape resulting in children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-26 07:17:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emqjm84/pseuds/emqjm84
Summary: The rape of an angel has consequences for everyone. A magical/transgender au.Chapter 1:Asuka comes to the realization she has forgotten her native language.Chapter 2:You wake up and wonder what they have done to you.Chapter 3:Kaworu is born into a world without Shinji.Chapter 4:“This isn’t the world I wished for.”Chapter 5:“Will I ever be okay? (again)”Chapter 6:“What did they want?”“To live.”





	1. Matarael

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cancelled: Glitter Genesis Evangelion/Queer AU/Magical People of various genders AU (Everyone is queer except maybe Misato but not everyone is magical)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113218) by [emqjm84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emqjm84/pseuds/emqjm84). 



> Warning: This is a transgender au but it probably won't come up too much as it isn't important to the plot. 
> 
> Please don't read this fic if you are in a bad place. 
> 
> Epilogue maybe coming someday.

Asuka sat at her desk and stared down at the words inside of the book. None of the words made sense and as she struggled to understand anything she came to the realization that none of the letters meant anything either. She tried to force her brain to remember but instead the only thing she understood was that she had forgotten her native language. 

She looked at the wand which she had on her desk nearby, it looked childish, mostly red with orange stripes and at the tip a green marble that sometimes seemed like an eye. She sometimes felt as if her wand were watching her even though it was only a tool. She turned the eye away from her not wanting to cover it. She couldn’t afford to lose it, not when it was the only thing protecting her from them.

Today had been difficult, they’d discussed the Second Impact in class today. An unknown amount of time ago but presumed to be decades ago the majority of the human race was wiped out. Starting in America in a place called Groom Lake something spread and eliminated everything before finally stopping in Japan. Asuka knew the truth, the second impact happened last year and she had been transported to Japan before it happened. This haunted her because she couldn’t remember her parents or her home anymore.

The fact that she was even aware of these gaps was due to her wand, her Evangelion. It protected her from being forgotten even when the rest of the world was. The angels were drawn to her as one that they missed. Ultimately the wand protected her from death and if there was one thing she knew it was that she didn’t want to die. She wouldn’t allow them to make her disappear because ultimately she was the last hope of her country and the outside world. She had to survive.

Opening her cellphone she scrolled past a list of people who would never answer again wondering who they were and what they meant to her. 

Asuka texted the group chat:

Are we still meeting tonight?

Yes

Rei replied, Asuka grabbed her wand. The transformation was smooth and instantaneous she posed in the mirror and found she looked perfect as always. She stepped out into the cool summer night despite it being early January and bending her knees for force jumped. Flying hundreds of feet in the air she bounded across kilometers in moments.

-

Kaworu held Shinji and listened to his breathing hoping that this moment would last forever, Asuka’s arrival shattered that hope. He heard her land and listened to her steps as she stomped over towards them.

“Is this why you didn’t reply?” She demanded looking down at them. 

“Asuka, have you considered lowering your estrogen? It’s making you really bitchy.” Shinji said clearly not amused by her interruption either. 

Asuka gave Shinji a glare that could kill, he tightened his grip around Shinji protectively. 

“Rei is already out hunting it.” Kaworu said quickly changing the topic giving her his most charming smile, she relaxed a little bit. She had always had sort of a crush on him in every timeline. He had no qualms about taking advantage of this, he had finally gotten a world where he and Shinji could be together. 

“And you just let her go alone?” She asked them. 

“She didn’t want to wait. I told her that they’re drawn to us but she still went anyways.” Shinji said. 

“Well unlike both of you I’m not going to passively wait for the angels to come to us. Don’t you care that they’re trying to kill us?” Her knuckles tightened against her wand she was close to tears. 

“As long as I’m with Kaworu nothing else really matters.” 

“Ugh fine, you two stay here and let us take care of everything like usual...” Asuka said calling on her cellphone as she jumped off to find Rei. Kaworu breathed a sigh of relief, he needed them all to fight the angels but he didn’t want to risk Shinji. 

-

Asuka wandered the streets of the area, there had been reports that a gigantic spider had been seen in the area instead all she found were potholes which practically tried to twist her ankle off. Kaworu was like her in that they both didn’t belong and yet he seemed to fit in. He and Shinji from the moment they met had been inseparable. The world was dying and all they seemed to care about beyond their immediate survival was spooning. She envied them and hated them at the same time for being happy.

The more she followed the road the more potholes there were. They began to spread up the side of buildings and even onto cars themselves. There were no people around which was ominous, angels can’t be hurt by ordinary people. She wondered if in a few weeks this would become a “ghost town”. She felt cold as she realized how easy it was to be forgotten.

She smelled it before she heard them. The smell burned her lungs and made her have to hold back heaving. There was a heavy smell of chemicals breaking down and she rushed into it afraid of what might find. Instead she found Rei indomitable standing against the angel which looked like a giant spider, her orange dress flowing as if she were a goddess. She aimed an arrow at the creature which was dripping acid from it’s wounds and mouth. She fired and it fell all without her noticing Asuka.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Asuka asked.

“I didn’t need you.” Rei replied.

-

Asuka walked back with Rei to Shinji and Kaworu. 

“You shouldn’t let him sleep with his binder on.” Asuka said.  
“I’m awake but it doesn’t matter. It’s a magical binder so I can sleep in it as much as I want.” Shinji said, Kaworu simply continued stroking his hair.

“God ew, at least get a hotel room.” Asuka said disgustedly, Rei simply ignored their banter and left. 

“It’s fine, no one seems to mind.” Shinji said cuddling into Kaworu.

She watched Rei leaving and realized that she didn’t belong here. This was their world and she was a nuisance. “Fine don’t blame me if you both get arrested for public indecency.” 

She ran until she made it back to civilization and then changed back. She took the train and barely saw anyone maybe it was just the time but every day there seemed to be less and less people, she wondered if maybe they were too late.


	2. Zeruel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake up and wonder what they have done to you.

You wake up and wonder what they have done to you. You begin by spreading your chapped lips to take in a breath of air. You’re hooked up to an elaborate spread of machines and IVs. The cacophony of noises makes you wonder how you managed to sleep so long. There are needles inside of you covered by a bandage.

You lift you are carefully and place your finger down your throat. You can feel the roughness of stitches against your throat. You use the term stitches lightly, they are mostly glue and plastic fiber for good measure. You pull your finger out, it is coated in blood. You take your hand to your throat and feel where they sewed. You stare down at your entire body, you are so cold. They covered you in ice to prevent swelling.

A blonde haired woman stared at you with a look of disgust. 

“Rei, you shouldn’t do that. You might reopen your neck.” Ritsuko said.

You tried to say something to her but your voice did not work anymore. A man was standing next to Ritsuko. 

“The surgery was successful. We salvaged her soul into this body.” He said.

You tilted your eye to look over. He had taken your now bloodied hand and was stroking it. You recognized him as Gendo Ikari and though you knew who these people were you had no idea who they were either. Behind them was another bed, you could see an obviously pregnant human, it had no head. A collection of machines stimulated and cared for it and at the moment you could not see much difference between it and you. 

You looked at them asking why without words. He didn’t seem to understand you.

“Don’t worry, just sleep. You’re safe now.”

Ritsuko took out a syringe and injected something into your line. For a moment you were there and then you were gone.

-

Rei blinked back from her memories into the present. 

She was covered in blood but as she watched the body in front of her collapse she realized that it wasn’t her blood. The body in their bright red dance titled forward like some kind of ancient dinosaur before collapsing. The angel stared at her through their skull like face unfolding their arms, gently like a lover it spread them over Asuka’s body as if searching for something. She stared for a moment dumbfounded how something so horrible could be so gentle.

Zeruel lifted her body and bit into Asuka’s shoulder utterly ignoring her. She dropped her bow and arrows which were useless. The angel even after a single bite was already changing into something more human like. She could see the sapphire tones of Asuka’s eyes reflected inside of the skull. They would finish eating Asuka and then they would try to kill her. Then they would probably eat her too. 

“Why did you do that?” She asked neither the angel nor Asuka answered her. The angel had made their way past her shoulders now. With every second they looked more like her and Asuka’s body looked less like itself. She felt completely unafraid as she tried to understand her hesitation with complete detachment.

She was waiting for Asuka to come back but she was gone. Unlike her she could not be replaced. The angel’s body slimmed and though she had never seen Asuka naked she was sure that they would have looked similar. Her bow transformed back into a wand on the ground in front of her. Asuka’s wand sat in a puddle of blood a few feet away.

“Why did you do that?” 

She asked the single glowing green eye on the wand. 

Asuka was gone and time would not bring her back. She should have been the one to die here. Shinji should have saved her. This isn’t how the story was supposed to go. There was a sickening snapping noise as her shoulders compressed bringing her ribs into an unnatural shape. She smelled the contents of Asuka’s insides. Asuka’s bodies legs suddenly began to flail against the body of the angel kicking spasmodically. 

The angel fell to their knees as if praying, their back split open and sinews spread out. She saw a hand reaching out glowing like a ghost towards her. She grabbed onto it pulling desperately.

“Asuka!”

The hand pulled out and she heard Asuka scream. Her hand felt numb and she looked down at it, there were boils spreading out of it. One of the boils opened up and she saw the teeth and heard the voice.

“ I don't want to die! I don't want to disappear!” The boil said to her in a tiny voice. She watched more of them join each other in chorus. They looked like Asuka now. “Don't kill me!” The angel was screaming it sounded like Asuka and something else entirely. There was another arm now, two arms, a torso, another torso, arms, bodies, legs. She looked back at the faces on her arm it was spreading.

She took Asuka’s wand, it activated spreading into a lance. The angel was still eating even as she screamed. There were mouths and faces now or maybe they had been there for a long time. They were all screaming. She stabbed the lance into the thing over and over, the paper arms unfolded but the tower on it’s back upended it. She sliced paper, it came apart easily. She continued to stab the angel even as it cried and begged. 

She stabbed and stabbed without mercy until there was nothing left. She looked at what remained of Asuka. She couldn’t tell where the original was anymore, all that was left was a pile of dolls in the form of meat. She looked at her infected arm.

The voices were all speaking to her, begging her and they were spreading:

“Don’t look at me!”

“I don’t want to die.”

“No.”

“This isn’t me!”  
“Don’t kill me” 

“Stop this, please stop it-”

She wasn’t sure if they were talking to her, at her, or at each other. They were slowly spreading up her arm contaminating her. Gently she took Asuka’s lance into her other hand and lowered the blade right under the armpit of her contaminated arm. With a swift gentle movement she severed it. Instantly the lance reverted to a wand dropping out of her hand. She glanced at the arm in the puddle as it drowned, she couldn’t tell where her blood, Asuka’s blood, or the angels blood began or ended. 

She would need to replace this arm. She didn’t have much time but unlike Asuka she could still be salvaged.

-

Shinji looked at Rei with horror. 

“What happened to your arm?”

“The angel.”

-

“Don’t kill me!”

“Please I’m not a doll.”

She opened her eyes, it was a dream. She looked at her arm it had been replaced. It was purple and blue and bruised. Her arm was surrounded in ice but she could see the stitching, the glue, and the various threads holding her together. She reached out and felt them poking her, it felt familiar and terrible. Gendo Ikari was asleep in the chair next to her bed. She wondered how he managed to sleep with the sound of all of these machines. 

She looked over at the other bed. It was empty.

Asuka wasn’t there.


	3. Arael Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asuka wakes up in a world of meat.
> 
> Kaworu wakes up in a world without Shinji.

Ritsuko smashed her dying cigarette into an already overstuffed ashtray positioned precariously over some very ancient grimoires. She watched the Rei clone with only one arm for a moment as it mindlessly floated with the others giggling happily. It was already regrowing it’s arm but it would take months before it finished. The angels wouldn’t wait for them, they had three left and she hoped that would be enough. 

She frowned, Asuka had been lost last night. This morning they would need to begin recovery operations. She pulled out her wand, a single white cross, and focused on it. Three of the grimoires from her desk rose up, her mother’s works. 

“The Second Children has been lost. This was not foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Magi, how should we proceed?”

There was a hum of magic for a moment as they divined the various futures and pathways that could be taken.

“59% PROBABILITY THE SECOND CHILDREN WILL REGAIN FULL FUNCTIONALITY WITHOUT INTERVENTION IN APPROXIMATELY 260 DAYS +-5 DAYS. CONTROLLING FOR SEPTIS RAISES THE PROBABILITY TO 76%. WITH SURGICAL INTERVENTION WITH 95% CONFIDENCE THE SECOND CHILDREN WILL REGAIN FULL FUNCTIONALITY WITHIN 72 HOURS USING THE REI...” 

Her focus broke and the cross dropped to the ground. She reached for her cellphone, as usual there was no signal in the central dogma. She lit a cigarette and headed for the lift. As she neared the top her signal returned. She dialed Professor Ikari. “Gendo, I have finished conferring with the Magi. Asuka is alive, we need to send out a recovery team. I don’t think we will be able to have dinner tonight.”

She quickly dialed Maya as she began walking back to her office. 

“Sempai, I just found the CUTEST cat on youtube. You have to see him…”

Ritsuko smiled.

“Maya, I need you to start prepping for surgery.”

“But we just finished operating 30 minutes ago.”

“Asuka will be coming in shortly. She’s alive.”

-

 

Rei’s cellphone started to ring. She recognized the tone as Gendo’s and instantly grabbed for her phone. A pain jumped through her arm as she reached for it faster than her am was truly ready for. Shinji and Kaworu who were visiting her stopped talking and Kaworu visibly tensed up. After a short conversation she hung up.

“I left my wand behind at the site where I battled the last angel. Ritsuko is coming to evaluate the angel’s corpse and recover my wand.” She left out the part about Asuka, she had seen Asuka die. Kaworu’s grip tightened on Shinji’s hands.

“Kaworu you’re hurting me.”

He loosened his grip immediately. 

“I’m sorry.”

He paused for a moment and he looked paler than usual. 

“Shinji, I need for you to stay with Rei and protect her.”

“But what about you?”

Kaworu smiled at him gently. He planted a kiss on his head.

“Think about what you and Rei would like for lunch. I’ll bring you both back something much better than hospital food.”

“Kaworu?” Shinji said shaking a little, they barely separated these days. 

-

Asuka awoke in what could only be described as a world made of meat. Mountains of meat, lakes of blood, and a ground made of viscera. She tried to stand up but her legs wouldn’t move. She heard her own voice coming up from the ground.

“Mommy, I’m scared. Please don’t ignore me mommy.”

She looked at the face which had fused into the ground.

“Mommy help me.”

She was surrounded by faces on the ground, each of them her own.

“Don’t hurt me.” The child said.

“I’ll kill you.” Another replied, she continued to repeat this staring at the gigantic corpse.

“Why did everyone abandon me? I’m not worthless.” Yet another one replied.

One which was formed more than the others covered herself with her hands. “I don’t want to die.”

Asuka looked at these forms and down at herself, other than her legs being fused into the ground she was more fully formed than most of them. She toned them out as she observed the situation analytically. The flesh around her was swelling and splitting apart but it was pink. This could be a dream but she dismissed this. She looked over the horizon turning herself as much as possible. 

The bodies though twisted out of shape many of them looked familiar, then she saw her head, gigantic and looming in the distance. 

“I died.” She said, this seemed to set off some of the others.

“NO! YOU’RE A STUPID LYING BITCH. I’M ALIVE.”

“It hurts.”  
“Mommy, I’m still here. Don’t go.”

The heads were difficult to follow but they were a problem to solve. She had battled both angels and a Phd dissertation committee, she could do this. She was Asuka Langley Soryu and whatever had happened to her wouldn’t change that. She didn’t need anyone but listening to them they needed her.

“Can anyone tell me what happened?” She asked the less formed versions of herself.

“They hurt me, they killed me, they tore me apart, the ate me, help me, help me…” The version of herself that had arms and was cowering said. 

“Who did?” Asuka asked trying to focus on one at a time. She would have to give them names at a later point.

“Mommy, the Angel, Shinji, Rei, they abandoned us and ate usandIdontwannadie” She trailed off into incoherence. 

Asuka looked at the angry one who was now berating her for upsetting the fearful one. It was obviously a waste of time at the moment. She looked at the child and the other one who were both competing for her attention. 

“Mommy…”

“Hey why are you wasting your time on them. Listen to me!”

She ignored that the demanding one and focused on the child.

“I’m not your mommy.” She said to her. 

“Please don’t stop being my mommy.” The child begged her.

She should have expected this, she remained calm trying to make herself as nonthreatening as possible. 

“I’m not your mommy, my name is Asuka.”

“But I’m Asuka.”

“Hey talk to me instead, I’m way better than a dumb child.” The demanding one piped in.

“I know, we’re both named Asuka. I hope we can be friends.” Asuka said to the child.

“Uh-huh” The child said sounding unsure.

“Ugh this is stupid. You’re wasting our time.” The demanding one said.

Asuka turned to face her.

“Okay, what would you propose I do?” Asuka asked the demanding one.

“Pay attention to me.”

“I am.”

This seemed to frustrate the demanding one as if she had not planned beyond this.

“I’m the real Asuka so you all need to listen to me.” the demanding one continued.

“Okay?” Asuka asked her, this situation would have driven most people to tears or broken them and yet to her they were just another problem to solve. 

“So as the real Asuka you should all listen to me even if you are all fakes.”

Asuka promptly decided that talking to any of them was a waste of time at the moment.

“Hey, you’re ignoring me again.” The demanding one started up.

“Mommy…”

“Kill you…”

“Don’t kill me.”

-

Rei’s cellphone rang. 

It was Asuka.

“Hello?”

A multitude of voices answered her each of them Asuka. 

The phone hung up. She called back only to have the call declined. A few torturous moments later a text arrived:  
Something happened. I died and have come back to life. I am getting the problem under control. I will call shortly.

Rei immediately called Kaworu and Ritsuko. During her call with Ritsuko Asuka called back.

“Hello?” Asuka asked.

“Asuka?” 

“Yes-” She said only to be immediately interrupted.

“No! I’m the real Asuka!” 

“I thought we agreed that I would talk. I will hang up if you aren’t quiet.”

The other Asuka began to argue. Soon the order was completely broken and all of them were talking. 

“What’s happening?” Rei asked trying to follow all of them. It was difficult when they mostly all sounded the same.

-

Had arrived close to where last night's battle had taken place. He slowed down to a walk, it had been cloudy all day but rays of light were beginning to show through. Rei had called him to inform him what she knew. There were multiple Asukas that had fused some which might be fakes. It was close to noon and yet the suns rays shined down on him like early afternoon. The brightened burning him.

Kaworu felt the angel entering into his mind. 

“No, this isn’t supposed to happen.”

He writhed in agony as he felt it connecting. He put up an AT Field but it was already inside of him. He raised his wand, it transformed into a pistol. He fired at nothing and then his mind went white.

-

Kaworu fumbled around in the stifling dark coffin he found himself suddenly encased in. He didn’t panic but he felt a vague creeping fear as he imagined the implications of his situation. He didn’t mind dying but dying starvation over several weeks scared him. He breathed in feeling a heaviness in his lungs, he was suspended in LCL. There was nothing but hard plastic casing surrounding him. 

He waited in the darkness until finally he dropped his AT field. There was nothing but thousands of miles away in an empty control room an alarm went off. 

BLOOD TYPE BLUE IDENTIFIED

DUMMY PLUG SYSTEM CONTAMINATED

A few moments latter Kaworu felt an immense pressure as the container holding him launched out of the Evangelion he was inside. If he could have seen it he would have had trouble recognizing it as an Evangelion unit. All that remained was made unrecognizable by death and violence. They had not been built to last.

He woke up with an immense pain in his head. He stared at the dummy plug he had fallen out of confused at why he was still alive. He was in a restroom, a nearby stalls door remained open. The toilet’s contents resembled viscera as the toilet paper swelled and the fecal matter turned into rot. He ignored it reaching out for something greater than himself as he felt around with his AT Field. 

Shinji was gone.

“I don’t understand… Why was I born?” He asked himself in desperation. He had always been born to love and that had been enough. Now he was alone.


	4. Arael Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji was gone.
> 
> “I don’t understand… Why was I born?” He asked himself in desperation. He had always been born to love and that had been enough. Now he was alone. 
> 
> “This isn’t the world I wished for.” 
> 
> -
> 
> “I have orders to begin operating on Asuka as soon as we return to the central dogma.” Ritsuko said to Asuka.
> 
> "But I'm still alive."
> 
> “Your consent is not needed. Asuka is dead and you are just a piece of her meat. I do not need your consent.”

Kaworu guided by his AT Field made his way to the surface of the Necropolis. There were no Lilin left that he could sense. “Adam” was gone as was Lilith and in a sense he had accomplished the goal he had been created for.

“This isn’t the world I wished for.” 

He saw Evangelion Unit 02 or it’s remains. The soft bits were well on their way to rotting leaving behind skeletal remains. His mouth watered. She must have tasted amazing. He had wanted to eat her, to tear her flesh apart. He looked at himself in the light for the first time. Tattooed on his arm were words:

MASS PRODUCTION EVANGELION DUMMY PLUG #12.

Kaworu had died long ago. He was Kaworu but at the same time he was not. This did not phase him as he was used to dying. He tried to remember his past but could not remember very much. He remembered Unit 02 splitting his Evangelion in half, he had been thrown and then everything went black. He had missed the Third Impact because he had slept through it, he laughed at his luck shedding a few tears. Countless tears. 

He looked towards the Ocean and sensed all of them were inside, the Angels, the Lilin, even Tabris. He would follow them.

-

Naoko watched as the infant struggled to hang onto her as she forced it away. It began to cry, she ignored it. She moved on to the next child. It wasn’t feeding and she knew that if it did not eat it would soon die like the rest of them. She had been assigned an important duty but these days she felt as if all she did was keep a death watch.

The experiment was simple and to be honest a waste of her abilities. Humans developed language based on what they heard. By raising children in complete isolation she had hoped they would default to the natural language that all life originated from, the language of angels. Instead something unexpected happened, the children simply went silent, stopped feeding, and then passed away. 

Finishing her duties for the next few hours she ascended from the central dogma back to the campus. Ritsuko was waiting for her, reading a book like always. She had grown by leaps and bounds and would one day work by her side. 

“Are you done with work today mom?” 

“Not yet, I have a meeting.”

-

Naoko entered into the darkly lit room. A row of monoliths lit up.

“We were unable to prevent the prophecy as foretold in the dead sea scroll from occurring. The fifth child has been incarnated despite our efforts.” 

Another monolith lit up. 

“Still we believe that it is possible to use him. We would like to enroll him into your work.”

“Taking him would introduce too much noise into my data. We aren’t even sure he is human. He could invalidate my results.” Dr. Akagi said.

“Your results have been useless in any form of practical applications.” the first monolith chimed in.

“Consider this a gift, we expect great results of the fifth. Developing a rosetta stone for the angel’s language is essential regardless of cost. This could prove to be the breakthrough you have been seeking.” the third monolith commented with a slightly nasally voice.

“Remember you can be replaced if you do not produce results, Naoko.” The fourth monolith commented sounding as if he had a cold.

“I understand.” Dr. Akagi though inside she wondered who would really replace her considering they had lost two of her cohort recently, she did not state this. 

She was dismissed, she passed Gendo Ikari in the hallway. He had recently lost his wife and was single. This shouldn’t make her heart flutter but it did and she hated herself for it. Her daughter was waiting but he looked so alone and she would be fine a little bit longer.

-

Kaworu was raised with a large group of children in utter silence. He could hear the others through the dividers occasionally but could never see them. At first like all of the other children sounds sprang from within. Gradually the voices stopped until he was all alone. He didn’t hear any other babies moving. Once he was old enough he began to talk. He wasn’t sure what they wanted from him as they seemed disappointed when he spoke Japanese.

As he grew they moved him to a larger cell. Every day he would receive one meal. He did not know but at the time he was constantly being listened to. His life went on in a monotonous silence for the most part. They would slide books into the door and some scientists would come to talk with him.Occasionally there was a blue haired girl with them, Rei, he liked talking with her but he wondered when he would finally meet Shinji. He had an eternity but knowing that Shinji was alive and alone hurt him to his core. 

-  
He waited for the day he would meet Shinji.  
-  
He waited for the day he would meet Shinji.  
-  
He waited…  
-  
…  
-  
Years passed. Something was wrong, he didn’t age. 

He asked Rei a question casually during one of their visits. 

“How long until your Birthday?”

-

He waited until the next time he saw her, the answer remained the same. They were stuck in an endless autumn. He asked her,

“Who are you?”

“I am me.”

Rei replied.

“What is your name?”

“Rei.”

He turned his AT Field on her, he tore her apart like a doll. There was no blood, only light. He tored into her with his mouth and his teeth and tasted the light. She begged for him to stop but he didn’t care for the angel’s words. He tore at the walls, the people, everything, until there was nothing left but light. 

He was surrounded in a bright light. He tore at it until it bled, Arael begged him to stop, he ignored it. This is why he had left Shinji behind, anyone else it would have destroyed but he was beyond such things.

He was the angel of free will.

-

Ritsuko saw the light from her car. An angel seems to have engaged the Fifth. That left Shinji as potentially the only functional one left. Dr. Fuyutsuki frowned.

“Should we send Shinji?”

“The fifth can handle himself. Part of our mutual agreement is that the Third is not to engage unless absolutely necessary. Let’s focus on salvaging the second and recovering the Evangelions.”

She said turning her van to take the long way around the angel to be safe. She had talked to Asuka earlier, she was not sure what to expect. She was multitudes, apparently her form had been split. Potentially it was an angel attack but the angels typically worked alone.As they pulled up to the site where Rei had marked they couldn’t see Asuka anywhere. 

She collected Rei’s wand placing it in a plastic bag. Dr. Fuyutsuki was examining the angel’s corpse when he called her over. They found Asuka’s remains, eaten, her head and arms severed. 

“She’s dead.”

“How dare you!”

Ritsuko thought she heard something. They both looked towards a lump of flesh vaguely in the shape of an arm. Ritsuko examined it, it was covered in lumps with various levels of approximation of Asuka’s general form and shape.

“Asuka?” 

She asked, the various forms started chattering towards her. Until one of them quieted them down, it was the largest lump and better formed than most.

“Yes, I’m the one who called. I seem to have died and somehow now I am in this shape.” Asuka said.

“I have orders to begin operating on Asuka as soon as we return to the central dogma.” Ritsuko said.

“I would need to discuss it with everyone.”

“Your consent is not needed. Asuka is dead and you are just a piece of meat. I do not need your consent.”

She pulled out from her bag a small kit. Carefully she pulled out an alcohol swab and opened it. She rubbed it on a place where she couldn’t see a face. The various faces were all talking now.

“You can’t do this, you are in violation of UN Human rights law.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”  
“I’m scared!”

“I’m going to kill you for this.”

“How dare you call me meat, I am Asuka Langley…”

Taking a needle she drew out a sample of blood. Carefully she squeezed a dot onto a card and held onto it. 

“Dr. Fuyutuski grab what you can that looks like it is from Asuka. Let’s leave this bit for last, I don’t want to damage it.”

“What about the angel?”

“We can send Gendo.”

She cursed the lack of staff that came from being a small secret society. They simply didn’t have the sort of resources to handle this that a large organization would have. They gathered the pieces ignoring the pleas from the piece of meat. The card after a few minutes finally displayed a result.

“Blood Type: Sepia” She said looking at the results, legally what was in front of her was not human but something closer to Rei. “We should be able to salvage her from it.” She said gently lifting the arm like piece. She tried to ignore it’s voice, it was better to be detached from something you are going to cut into.

“I’m sorry.” Ritsuko said allowing herself to connect this much. “Please understand, I’m doing what is in Asuka’s best interest.”

“But I’m Asuka-”

-

Ritsuko focused on debriding the tissue. Maya couldn’t handle it and had left the room to help Dr. Fuyutsuki prep the Rei clone.

“Mommy help, they’re cutting me.” 

She couldn’t blame Maya for leaving. She preferred it, she didn’t want to see this side of her. She already felt she’d lost that respect. 

“It’s okay, this will make us better.”

She mostly ignored them but sometimes she couldn’t help but listen. She was glad that she had never been a mother, she couldn’t stand children. She looked at the more fully formed on.

“What does it feel like when I cut?”  
“Pressure, a strong detached kind of pressure. Sometimes it feels like nothing at all but other times it pinches.” The more fully formed Asuka said.

“If it begins to hurt let me know, I can’t sedate you but I can stop.”

“I want you to stop now, you are upsetting many other parts of me.”

“I was not giving you the option of consent. I simply want to know when I am cutting live tissue so that I can avoid it.”

-

They had debated over if they should attach the part to the arm or the head of the clone. Eventually they decided on the head. It looked bizarre floating in the tank with the other clones, a vaguely arm shaped thing jutting out from the neck. It was a mockery of all of her work as a Doctor in many ways. Ritsuko drank her coffee, she was shaking now from exhaustion. 

Maya rubbed Ritsuko’s wrists, massaging them lovingly. She didn’t understand why the woman was fawning over her after seeing her experiments. 

“Did I do the right thing?” She asked her. Maya paused in her massaging for a moment as she considered her answer.

“I think so, you’ve did what it took to save Asuka, to help everyone.”

“I don’t think she saw it that way.”

“Sick people and doctors don’t always agree on what’s best for them. But I think you had her best interests at heart.”

“I hope so.”

She said watching the body drift.

“Maya, I’m so glad you are my assistant.”

She blushed at this.

“Me too…”  
-

Ritsuko arrived at Gendo’s office. He stared at her in that way that seemed as if he could kill her without a single regret but she knew that underneath she was precious to him even if he kept it a secret from the other staff. 

“You’ve outdone yourself. Both the First and the Second have been salvaged.” She blushed at his praise. 

“Without your hard work and skill everything would have been lost.” She couldn’t tell if it was because of how tired she was or if it was his praise but he seemed more attractive than normal. She undid a few buttons on her blouse and he smiled.He slid back from his office chair and gestured for her to join him.She hadn’t slept in 48 hours but she felt more awake than ever.

She sat down on his lap, he whispered how proud he was of her while gently stroking her hair. Sometimes she wondered if a desire for death drove her to him but other moments like this reminded her of how much she wanted to be needed, to be loved, to be wanted, and critical, and special. She closed her eyes for a moment finally feeling content.. 

She fell asleep in his arms. Technically she still had much more work to do but allowed her for the moment to rest against him. He closed his eyes and imagined she was Yui. 

“I’ve missed you so much. Please don’t ever go away again.”

He whispered to her. These moments were like an oasis in the desert. With a deep breath and a sigh he opened his eyes, she was still here. He considered jostling her awake but he felt he had gotten all that he could out of her at the moment. She’d want his love and he wasn’t feeling it at the moment. He carefully shifted out from under her without waking her up.

He walked to the breakroom and jostled Ms. Ibuki awake. “Dr. Akagi has passed out in my office again. Would you please help me take care of her.”

She was a relatively heavy sleeper but together they moved her to the bed in the breakroom. He watched as Maya snuggled in against Dr. Akagi, it was unwholesome but he could not bring himself to actually care. It was easier for him to use her this way and if she wanted to clean up his messes he was fine with it. He pulled out a few bills from his wallet and placed them next to the table.

“Order takeout when she wakes up, it’s on me. Good work tonight.”

“Thank you Commander.” Maya said positively beaming. 

“I expect a complete autopsy report on the angel within the next twelve hours. Please inform Dr. Akagi of this when she is awake.”

“Yes sir.”

-

Kaworu hadn’t returned with lunch. 

Ritsuko had discharged her and returned her wand. She’d asked if she could see Asuka only to be informed that she was being prepped for surgery. Shinji was starting to get nervous as 4 PM came around without even a text from Kaworu. So she offered to go speak with the Commander as he would know what was going on.

She knocked on his door. He was consulting with Dr. Fuyutsuki. 

“Come in.”

She entered, he looked tired.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you knew where Asuka was?”

“She is currently recovering from surgery in an intensive care unit.”

“May I see her?”

“There is no point, she is not conscious yet. When her condition stabilizes I will call you.”

He smiled kindly. He looked as if he genuinely pitied her in that moment. 

“What about Kaworu?”

Commander Ikari went back to his normal cold self. 

“Dr. Fuyutsuki and I were discussing that. Please sit down.”

-

Rei looked at the video feed on the tablet. 

Kaworu’s head was a pillar of light which glowed brightly. On his back were wings of light.

“Kaworu and the angel are currently merged. Neither have moved since.” Gendo Ikari said.

There was a ringing noise heard through the speakers. Shinji was calling him, Kaworu did not move.

“He does not respond to stimuli but in a sense the angel is contained. We don’t have the ability to risk our resources at this moment.” Gendo Ikari continued.

 

-  
“I can’t take him. He needs more help than I can give.” 

“Where would you be if everyone had said the same thing about you?” 

“This is different Ritsuko!”

“How?”

Misato found herself at a loss for words. Ritsuko accidentally clinked her cup of coffee against a nearby crystal ball. With a sigh she lit another cigarette and flipped open Kaworu’s file. 

“He is the sole survivor of the Salimbene experiments. He has no one and if you don’t take him his life will continue as it always has. He’ll always just be another experiment, another tool. I’m not asking you to fix him, I just know you will treat him like a human.” Dr. Akagi said lecturing her.

“I hate it when you talk to me like this, Rit-chan.” Misato said glaring at her as if she had been handed a death sentence.

“He functions well and has seems to have minimal symptoms. He is more stable than you are.”

“He needs help.” Misato pleaded.

“You’re the only help he is going to get. Gehirn has taken so much from us I thought you’d jump at this opportunity but I can assign him to live alone.” Dr. Akagi said threateningly.

“I’ll take him. I just think this is wrong. NERV should provide more to him.”

“He can request psychological services if he needs them. Don’t worry you’ll have fun.”

Misato set down Kaworu’s folder. Rolling her eyes at Ritsuko’s comment. 

“I chose them for you to keep an eye on because I know you won’t let anything happen to them.” She continued

 

-

Please god, just let this be okay. I need this to be okay. Kaworu thought to himself as Ritsuko led him to his new guardian. All of this was so new to him, this was his first time outside of a controlled environment and everything was so incredibly terrifyingly new to him. His hands were shaking. He took a breath and steadied himself. 

He saw them before they saw him. Everything would be okay if he could just make this work.  
He put on his most normal smile the one Ritsuko said looked totally natural.

“Misato, Shinji, I’d like for you to meet Kaworu Nagisa. He’s going to be living with you from now on. Please be kind to him.”

Kaworu’s heart skipped when he got a closer look at Shinji. His smile faltered. Shinji looked nervous as he looked away. imfailingthiswasn- His smile returned but something had changed and he realized this was the boy he would die for. He was born to love and this boy was why. 

“Hello, nice to meet both of you.” He held out a hand to Shinji. 

He knew that Ritsuko wasn’t here just to support him.

-

They arrived back at the apartment. Shinji and Misato entered before him. He stepped inside.

“Welcome home.”

He held back tears and smiled.

-

“I- I’d forgotten this…” Kaworu said feeling a sense of dread. 

“Why are you making me relive all of this?”

But the angel did not answer the other, it simply continued. Shinji was cooking dinner now, he could smell it faintly. They were discussing the new study abroad student who would be coming tomorrow, Asuka. Misato asked him if he minded sharing a room with Asuka.

“No- I don’t mind.” In fact he was grateful to Asuka for letting him share a room with Shinji. He sil-


	5. Armisael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rape of an angel has consequences.

Asuka heard their giggling and opened her eyes. She opened her eyes trying to remember where or who she was. Upon opening her eyes she realized she was in darkness. She reached for her face only to find one of her arms would not move. The other touched the fabric? It was covered in a thick plastic coating. Bandage. It ached.

She screamed it was muffled. Panicking she felt the shape of her head, it was human. The voices continued to giggle as if her suffering were some kind of an in-joke that only they understood. She was floating, she swam forward and bumped into glass. 

Suddenly she felt something grab her. She struggled against it but it pulled her out of the liquid with a preternatural strength. As she surfaced she collapsed onto the floor, her body felt incredibly delicate and heavy at the same time. 

“Stay Still.” 

The woman’s voice commanded. She did and she listened to her go through some tools. The thing on her face was suffocating in it’s wetness but all she could do was lay there and try to breathe. It was as if her connection to a world that made sense had been severed. There was a horrible clipping noise against her face like a nail clipper inside of her skull. She felt a release of pressure and then another and another. 

The light poured in eventually, she wanted to move but they were still clipping. Sometimes it hurt sharply. She stared up at the ceiling in the room she was in, she could smell the cigarette smoke, blood, and herself. Ritsuko was above her, she wanted to murder her for everything she had done to violate her but she was also dependent on her even as she continued to doing things she would have considered intolerable a short time ago.

She pulled the stiches from her skin.  
“What happened?”

“You died, your soul tried to incarnate into a piece of flesh but it couldn’t fully support it. Instead it split into parts. We inserted your soul into a spare body.”

“You had spares?”

“Of Rei, we adapted it to you.”

“What do I look like?”

“I don’t have a mirror.”

“A cellphone photo will do.”

Ritsuko pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. She flipped it around for Asuka to see. Her was was like a pencil drawing that had been smeared in flesh form. It was distorted beyond recognition as her own, there was no hair. There remained a few smaller smears though they seemed to be healing shut. She looked at her eyes, one was in the right place but the other had veered off to another face. The stitches had left massive purple scars in lines on her face.

“Will I ever be the same again?”

“You have been one of the proudest accomplishments of my career. The fact you are talking with me again and breathing is one of the greatest things any metaphysical doctor has ever done.”

“But will I ever look even close to normal?”

“You have two functioning eyes, two nostrils, a mouth, and will live a healthy life with no shortening in life expectancy.”

“Will I ever be okay?”

“I think you will need to change your definition of okay.”

“Will anyone ever love me now that I’m like this?”

She ignored the Doctor’s answer she already knew the answer to her question. 

“I want to go home now.” Asuka said.

-  
Rei was looking for her but she didn’t want to be seen yet. The taxi cab driver that picked her up balked at her until Ritsuko handed him a bill and gave him her address. She supposed that this was going to be a part of her life from now on. When they were alone and had been driving for a few moments he began his interrogation.

“What happened to you?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

He nodded as if he were understanding as he looked over her body.

“You must have been so pretty before. Such a waste of a young woman.” 

In that moment part of her agreed but another part wanted to strangle him. She was still here, still alive, and she could do many of the things that she had before. She focused on managing her own pain until finally…

“Stop the car.”

“But I’m supposed to drive you home.”

“I don’t need your help.”

He ignored her, she reached into her bag for her wand, the transformation came like a new awakening. She put her backpack on and after slicing through the door jumped out into the hot summer air. The air whipped around her as blood spread out from her wounds, it felt good to move even as it felt unfathomably terrible. Each leap wracked her body and yet her muscles ached to move again. 

She was going to live. 

-

Rei was in the unenviable position of hating someone she loved more than anyone else in the world.

“You want us to abandon Kaworu?”

“Correct. Kaworu is the final angel, Tabris, the angel of free will and he is both the cause and the solution to the angels plaguing humanity...” Dr. Fuyutsuki said.

“I’ve hidden this from you for years but he took my wife from me. Do you know how it feels now that he is trying to take my son too.” Gendo said and Rei could feel his firm facade fading. Her anger receded to be replaced with shame, she regretted not trusting him. This is why she could not allow herself to have emotions, they poisoned her against the people she was made to die for. 

She made herself less than worthless when she allowed herself to feel.

-

Kaworu sensed it in the back of his head, something inside of his brain that was making him relive things over and over again. He couldn’t let go despite how he tried, he kept looping over and over until finally it came to this. He tried to control the memory, to make it as dull as possible, to purge the colors from it until he did not feel consumed.

Before he was Kaworu, he was Tabris, before he was Tabris he was flesh, before was flesh he existed.

Before his brain was formed he knew these things because he was a god. He waited in his heaven for the day he would fall. 

His name was Adam then.

There was a ritual.

An angel descended.

They bound him. Yui, Gendo, and Fuyutsuki. 

They bound him into flesh. Yui touched that flesh so gently, probing him for weaknesses, life.

Her touch tainted him. She knew this would happen. With all of the grace of a scientist she contaminated him in the name of knowledge.

Contaminated he curled into himself. 

She took the angel’s seed. 

They had created a barrier, it worked. Their souls split apart into the flesh even as the flesh remained whole. They were annihilated in that moment and two children were born from that union. 

They were named Rei and Kaworu.

-  
Gendo Ikari handed Rei a folder. 

“This briefing will tell you the truth behind what is actually going on. By allowing the coming angels to destroy Kaworu we prevent the prophecy of him returning to initiate the Third Impact. Think about it tonight and we can discuss potential solutions in the morning.” Gendo Ikari said.

“What about Shinji?” Rei asked.

“I don’t think he would believe us. We don’t expect you to lie to him, only avoid him until tomorrow morning.” Fuyutsuki said. 

“Despite what he may think our plans have always had his best interests at heart, that is why we allowed the angel to protect him. He and I are ultimately the same, we’re afraid of hurting or being hurt, that is why Rei, I need for you to help me protect Shinji.”

-

Shinji sat alone in the hospital cafeteria. The food had been put away, one of the employees had even given him a container of leftovers and a coffee. He had called Kaworu countless times before switching to Rei and then finally Asuka. In his desperation he even tried calling his father, his heart broken when he finally tried the a local restaurant. They picked up immediately his phone was fine.

He tried dialing Kaworu again before settling his head on the table. Maybe Kaworu’s phone had died and he was already on his way here. He closed his eyes settling into a light troubled sleep.

-

As Shinji slept Asuka exhausted arrived home. There was a soft delicate trailing of blood behind her like a leak. A new eye had opened in a more appropriate spot, blood leaked out of it. She had blinked a few more times with her old eye but graduatelly it had fused itself shut. She unlocked her door tiredly and in her bedroom again for the first time in what felt like ages turned on Sega Saturn.

-

Rei sat alone in her room pouring over the vast volumes of information given to her. Kaworu had been raised in isolation and trained to be an agent of Seele. Seele had manipulated NERV and sent Kaworu to sabotage the organization, they had turned him into a double agent eventually drawing them out. They eliminated most of them but not without the loss of most of their members… She continued to read through the night completely oblivious to the world around her. Even pulling her phone’s battery out after it rang one too many times.

-

Ritsuko descended into Central Dogma. Once there she resumed her nightly seance.

Taking out the cross she connected to the MAGI.

“Current projected outcomes for the next 48 hours.”

She asked them.

There was silence for a moment and then came a reply:

THE FIRST THROUGH THE THIRD CHILDREN WILL STANDBY WHILE THE FIFTH WILL BE SUBSUMED INTO THE ANGELS. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO CONTACT THE CHILDREN YOU WILL FAIL. IN APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR +-TWO HOURS, KAWORU WILL TRANSFIGURE INTO THE DOOR OF GUF, TABRIS WILL EMERGE. 

RECOMMENDED ACTION: ENGAGE ARMISAEL. 

 

She felt her blood run cold. Despite not having much time she asked the MAGI another question.

“Will I die if I take the recommended course of action?”

There was nothing for a precious moment then finally it came to a conclusion:

RITSUKO AKAGI WILL CEASE TO EXIST.

“What is my expected lifespan if I do not take this course of action?”

ONE HOUR +- TWO HOURS

“Will anyone mourn me?”

YES.

She hated herself for how selfish she was being when she should be rushing off.

“Who?”

MAYA IBUKI

She asked one final question that she had been afraid of asking.

Did he ever love me?

NO

 

She took a deep breath and stood up. She ascended from the Central Dogma and walked past Maya without waking her up. She hoped that in the morning she would wake up and they could have coffee together. Until then she saw no point in waking her, it was kinder to let her sleep. 

She activated her wand and rushed out into the night.

-

Amisael descended slowly and gracefully towards the shining beacon of light. They gently descended over the Angels when suddenly they were split apart, bleeding the now glowing line like a serpent searched around. Another impact rammed into it, it shuddered in pain. 

Dr. Akagi adjusted her aim from the rooftop. 

-

It pierced inside of her. 

It was a love she had never known her entire life. 

The sun would be rising in a about an hour. They were emerging from her back. She felt her bones straining under the weight, the weight of all of their love. One by one the angels took a breath and fell from her. They were dying, she wasn’t compatible. Arisael mourned the death of it’s children.

“I understand, I wasted my entire life in a loveless relationship too.” She said reaching into her coat. She lit a cigarette, she felt bitter. 

WHY?

It pulsed through her mind. It caused her to tumble forward, they inched towards the fifth.

WHY WONT YOU LOVE ME? WE ARE BOTH SO LONELY. 

She resisted being dragged as best she could.  
-

The sun rose on the two of them. The stillborn corpses of angels littered the area.

Ritsuko was no longer there mentally she didn’t even notice as the angel reached its goal. 

The four of them merged, Lilin, Kaworu, Armisael, and Arael. Their flesh entwined to create a tower. At the top from that gate on the otherside the door was opened. 

Tabris emerged.

He stepped off the tower floating in the air for a moment, then he was gone.

Gendo Ikari watched him leave. He approached the tower.

“Yui, wait for me. I’m going to become a god for you.”

He removed his gloves, Adam’s flesh writhed in the palm of his hand.

-

Shinji was gently stirred awake by Tabris. 

“Kaworu?”

He smiled,

“Good morning, Shinji.”


	6. Tabris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misato had failed to protect them.

Dr. Katsuragi knew he was going to die here. He had accepted that reality as a foregone conclusion, what he refused to accept was that she would die here too. Spread the salt around his daughter connecting the various charms. 

“Dad?”

“Someone has to seal the barrier from the outside.” he said chanting the magical words. 

He thrust the cross through the barrier activating it.

“Take care of your mother for me.”

-

Misato sat alone in her room which with the smell of her trash. She looked down at the cross which she held in her hand. It felt warm no matter how cold she felt, no matter how cold it was. Outside a snowstorm was silently raging intent on burying the world outside. Classes had been closed today due to the weather. She wished she could blame the piles of stuff, trash, and food on the weather but it looked like this year round. 

Her eyes followed a roach as it made a leisurely walk across her wall avoiding the trail of ants which had taken residence in the grave of her potted plants. She had done nothing all day which is what she did most days taking only the minimum amount of effort she needed to get by. She was grateful she could function in society again. 

Her cordless phone rang, she answered it feeling an ant tickle her ear as she placed it against her head. She squished the ant for it’s insolence. 

 

“There’s an angel!” Kaji said out of breath. 

“Where?” Misato asked squeezing her phone. Ritsuko had told her they would appear eventually but this was sooner than she thought possible. She heard Kaji fumbling with change as he inserted a few more coins into the payphone. 

“Near the artificial evolution laboratory and bates.” 

“What’s it doing?”  
“I don’t know, I think it’s looking for us but if it goes into bates a lot of people could get hurt.”

“Okay, I needed to get dinner anyways.”

“Misato, now isn’t the time to think about food. People could die.”

“Want to get dinner with me?”

“Sure, look just get over here, I need to call Ritsuko.”

Misato with a thought changed her cross into a wand. It was an elongated wand with the cross on the top in a ceramic white color. Her clothing changed from the grungy sweats she was wearing into a more form fitting space age looking suit like something from a bad (or good depending on your view) 1950s sci-fi film. 

-

Ritsuko was there first and she’d brought along her labmates. With Kaji they were all trying to wrangle the poor thing to the ground. She transformed her wand into a hammer and prepared to join the fray when Ritsuko spotted her. She let go of the thing and rushed to Misato waving her hands.

“Wait, don’t hurt it!”

“What?”

“It escaped from the lab. We just need you to help us hold it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

-

Students streamed in and out of bates from their meals staring at them as the group held it down. Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko worked with sharpies drawing strange symbols over the creature. 

“Are they filming a movie?” one student asked his friend, they were focused on the creature and her mainly. 

“Obviously, that suit looks totally fake.”

As they drew more runes the creature became more sluggish. It was almost skeletal now from how much they had stripped it. She almost pitied it except for the fact that it and its kind were responsible for the death of her father.  
-

Finally it had stopped moving. 

“Sooo…” Kaji said after a pause. “Bates?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Misato said excitedly.

“Don’t get your hopes up, they only have the breakfast bar today.” Kaji said disappointedly.

“After we get it back inside.” Ritsuko said crushing Misato’s soul forever.

“Ugh, fine.” Misato said.

\- 

“I refuse to let children fight the angels.” Misato said firmly. 

Gendo appeared unmoved. 

“This time it is for real.” he said.

“I don’t care, I can fight it alone. You told me to take care of those kids so I am.”

Gendo Ikari flipped around his cellphone, the last angel had appeared over a decade ago. He showed her the recording. The Artificial Evolution Laboratory looked like the sight of a spree killing. She watched Kaji fight it, the angel seemed completely unphased by him despite his formidable military experience. It’s eyes glowed in it’s birdlike head and suddenly Kaji was burned by a blast. 

He fell to the ground. Everything inside of her was telling her to rush to his aid but she knew it was a recording. Her mouth went dry as it lifted him up and

 

“I have to go. If you send a single one of them out I’ll kill you myself when I get back.”

-

Misato had failed to protect them.

-

Fresh tears formed and fell down Shinji’s face.  
“I thought you were gone.” He said on the verge of sobbing. “I thought you’d died and were never going to come back.”

Tabris looked at him trying to understand him. He was supposed to be happy to see him so why was this going to wrong.

“Why did you go?”

Tabris paused trying to think of a good lie. His words caught in his throat.

“Kaworu?” Shinji asked feeling afraid.

“I-” His usual mastery of language was failing him today. “I didn’t choose to go, I was forced away from you.”

A certain rigidity entered into Shinji’s body.

“What happened?”

He turned around grasping Kaworu’s arms. It hurt a little bit to be held this way.

Tabris opened his mouth for a long moment, Shinji stared at him intensely. He looked as if he was going to murder whoever made him feel this way or break down crying or both. There was a long pause and Tabris finally spoke up.

“What do you remember?” Tabris asked, his voice quivering.

“Yesterday right before you left you asked what Rei and I wanted for lunch.”

“Before that.”

“We went to visit Rei and Asuka, they were both injured in the last battle.”

Tabris looked as if he were choking, he pulled away from Shinji, his shoulders slumped inward.

“What is your earliest memory of me?”

Shinji paused it was hard for him to remember. 

“I was living in... a place… a year ago? Then you showed up and you were so shy and awkward back then. You were so cute and I got to live with you. You hugged me and said you were born to meet me and-”

Tabris was silently crying. 

“Were you happy being with me?” He asked shaking, he couldn’t even look Shinji in the eye.

Shinji smiled and brushed the tears away from his face.

“Of course, every moment I’ve spent with you have been the happiest moments of my life.”

He said trying to comfort Tabris. Tabris pulled away from him. 

He thought of the dummy plug who he’d sacrificed to get here. I wish I’d never been born. Shinji never needed me, I always just needed him. 

“I love you.” Tabris blurted out.

“I love you too.” Shinji said.

“I’m not the person you fell in love with.” 

-

Asuka woke up to the sound of a disk spinning inside of her Sega Saturn. The television was off but her game was paused and still running. She looked at the cacophony of stains on her pillow. Some were a fake looking bright red like koolaid, others were a darker shade of red, then there was the assorted brown blackish colors. She went to the sink and started washing her face. 

Her hands turned that pinkish brown color that told her she was actively bleeding. She washed her face and the water flowed softly pink. She looked at herself in the mirror, she still didn’t recognize herself. Her face if seen on another would have made her wince a few days ago. Looking at herself she realized would have felt painful, instead now she felt nothing but a dull shock. 

She felt around her neck, a white pebble popped out. She squeezed it and it crumbled in her fingers, a stitch. The black scars around her neck looked like a stretch mark and a bruise crossed together, there was something beautiful and terrible in their symmetry. Her face bore these marks where the bandage had been attached. 

She realized without her clothing no one would recognize her anymore.

Taking the morning slowly she picked up her cellphone and checked the messages.

-

Misato stood over the corpse of sachiel, her eyes glowed softly. It had been rendered unrecognizable. Both of them had turned into something unrecognizable during those moments. She’d watch it shift from being so alive, to dying, to finally stillness over the course of the hour. Every bone in her body hurt. She slid down to her knees, she’d done it, she protected what mattered to her.

She heard footsteps approaching, not wanting to she turned around to see Gendo approaching with a pistol in his hands. 

“You don’t need that, I took care of the angel.”

He raised the gun to her head and fired.

-

Ritsuko’s hands shook as he presented her the cross. 

“Can you use it?” He said simply.

She took it gently her hands shaking.

The angels had taken her mother and now her best friend too. 

“Yes.”

-

Rei had read over the information deep into the night. The morning light came in and inwardly she winced. Today would be a long day, after thinking about the information given to her she couldn’t find a logical reason to abandon Kaworu. She would tell him this in the morning and convince him to give her approval. Together with Asuka they would rescue him. She smiled for a moment imagining how happy Shinji would be once they were together again.

Would he hate her for not telling the truth, ultimately sometimes in order to maintain order you have to do things that are wrong but ultimately that order is what gives us stability. She didn’t have to be liked as long as everyone around her was okay. It was better they didn’t get attached to her, it would only hurt them more when she was replaced and didn’t remember them.

Reluctantly she placed the battery in her cellphone and plugged it in. It began to buzz with a flurry of requests and questions from Shinji, each one made her feel worse. After a moment she checked the texts but there was one that stood out. A message from Gendo Ikari:

Come Here.  
She clicked the link, her gps pulled up the coordinates. 

-

Asuka’s mind went blank as she stared at the photos. There were angels everywhere. She rushed to her window to confirm if it were true. A bunch of Gaghiel like creatures sat sunning on the bank of the seawall. Seagulls darted in and out among them as if they had been here for thousands of years. A blue octahedron floated by aimlessly in the sky, a tired seagull perched atop it. 

She didn’t see any people out on the street. She looked at the countless texts from Shinji and wondered if she had played video games while he died. Neither Kaworu or Rei had texted her. Guilt threatened to overwhelm her as the answer became apparent, she considered sitting back down and playing video games until they came for her. Instead she transformed, there were texts and calls from Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, and Maya.

-

Shinji had muted his phone. It sat soundlessly charging as he focused on Tabris who was the most important person in the world right now to him. 

“Am I the person you fell in love with?” He asked Kaworu.

“Not exactly but you’re still the same person at your core.” 

“So are you.”

“I did something unforgivable to you.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Not entirely.”

“Can you bring him back?”

“Yes.” 

Tabris hesitated to ask the next words but he needed to know to prepare himself.

“What will happen once he is back?”

“You’ll apologize and then we will all talk things through. I’m not going to abandon you.”

-

Rei didn’t want to approach the tower of light that had appeared in the abandoned outskirts of Tokyo-3. So much death had happened there, she had lost Asuka and potentially even Kaworu. There were angels everywhere, they seemed to ignore her, perhaps Asuka and Kaworu had been enough to satisfy whatever they were searching for. Anyone could tell by looking at the tower that the angels had won. 

She arrived at the tower without being harassed. The corpses of angels littered the area like discarded toys. Gendo was waiting for her alone. He held the various evangelion units of multiple people: a cross, ancient grimoire, and Kaworu’s wand. 

“Are we going to help everyone now?”

“Yes, but first we need Shinji’s wand to close the door. He will come if we wait for him.”

-

Shinji practically crawled onto to Kaworu as they walked past the floating sphere it cycled through black, white, and occasionally a spot of red. 

“Don’t worry Shinji, they won’t hurt you.” Tabris said. “They’ve gotten what they want now.”

“What did they want?”

“To live.”

-

Dr. Fuyutsuki called Asuka again as she was reading her texts, she answered. 

“Please tell me you know what is going on.”

“The world is ending. The angels have opened up the Doors of Guf and are resurrecting their companions. I expect that they will trigger the extinction of humanity.”

She tightened her grip on her wand.

“What are your orders?”

“Head to these coordinates, Shinji is heading there now. Kaworu is an angel, he is manipulating Shinji.”

“Why?” She asked horrified that the boy she had a crush on could be an angel. There was a sense of dread at how they’d react once they saw her but she quickly realized it didn’t matter. They were likely going to be fighting.

“Kaworu wanted to resurrect the angels. Shinji has betrayed humanity by aiding him. Your orders are to confiscate their wands and deliver them to Gendo Ikari. You have permission to kill both of them if they resist.”

-

Shinji didn’t recognize her except for the dress. She looked like a monster, he winced and felt pity for her. She had lost so much fighting the angels and he could tell she was never going to get it back. She would never fit into humanity again.

Kaworu moved protectively in front of him.

“Kaworu?”

“Stay back.” He said and there was something scary in his face that he’d only ever seen when he fought angels.

“But it’s just Asuka.” Shinji said.

“Shinji, step away from him. He isn’t what you think he is.” Asuka said, her wand transformed into a lance.

“I know what he is.” Shinji said, he did not change his wand into a weapon but Kaworu did.

“Then why?” Asuka asked, she seemed tired, so incredibly tired. Her weapon trembled not from fear but from weakness, she had pushed herself to her absolute limit, her skin was white, she was beaded in sweat.

“I don’t want to fight you Asuka.” Shinji said.

-

Asuka was leaking blood from the wounds on her face. She looked more as if she belonged in a hospital bed than combat. Rei gave her a look of horror and rushed towards her to support her. She felt as if her legs would give out. 

“I have his wand.” Asuka said holding it up, her hand shaking, it was wet with her sweat and effort. Rei stepped away from her letting her fall. She tumbled forward unsupported.

“What did you do to Shinji?” She asked, there was a hint of menace in her normally unemotional voice.

“I did what I was ordered to do, just like you, Rei.” Asuka said bitterly.

“Did you plan this?” Rei asked Gendo.

“Yes, bring me the wand, it is time for you to do what you were created for.”

“Why did you do this?” Rei asked.

“So that I could become god, once I am god I’m going to make everything right. Bring me the wand.”

“No.” Rei said simply.

“Asuka, kill Rei.”

With a surprising swiftness for one who was so sick she took her lance and lobbed of Gendo Ikari’s arm. An AT field formed a moment later, his blood splashed on it. Asuka was out of breath, she fell to the ground exhausted. Gendo laid there for a moment before with great effort he stood up. He pulled out his gun with his remaining hand.

An AT Field formed around between Gendo and everyone else. His bullet tinked off of it, he was aiming at Rei, the bigger threat. Tabris appeared and picked up Asuka and the wands.

“I’m sorry, we needed to draw him out.” Tabris said with his normal enigmatic smile. “He was using all of us.”

Gendo Ikari threw down the gun and grabbed the cross he had dropped, he began to transform into a new form. The form contorted him and mutilated him, blood sprayed out.

“I don’t understand, what’s happening?” Shinji asked in horror.

“The Evangelion is rejecting him.” Rei said.

-

Gendo Ikari was dead. They had the Evangelion Units, they held all of the keys. 

“Who was he, and why did he do all of those terrible things?” Shinji asked Kaworu.

“I don’t know.” Tabris lied.

-

With their help Asuka made it to the top of the tower. 

The doors of Guf stood open waiting for them.

“Who is going in?” Shinji asked.

“I’ll go.” Asuka said.

“But-”

-

Asuka held the phone against her head as she stepped through the doors. She awoke on a coast. The ocean of blood lapped against her feet. She could hear a tinny voice asking her what happened. She felt her face, it was younger than it had ever felt, it was whole. She was whole again. 

She was still the same, her perspective had shifted.

There was nothing around her except devastation. The world had ended. There were the remains of a huge black pyramid, the bodies of gigantic gods, and beyond that the infinite void of space. 

She picked up the phone. Her wand nearby was there too. Her wand glowed brightly with potential.

“What is it like inside?” Rei asked.

“It’s terrible and beautiful.”

**Author's Note:**

> In 2015 I wrote a fic titled: Evangelion Queer AU/Magical People of various genders AU (Everyone is queer except maybe Misato but not everyone is magical) 
> 
> I never finished it so this fic is my attempt to finish something. They are very different stories, but I hope that at least one day I will complete this one. It is in some ways a vent fic. 
> 
> Please let me know if there are any triggers I should add to the tags.


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